Panel forges ahead on police station study

BETHEL - Unlike the town's schools or the public library, most residents don't see the inside of the Bethel police station.

That's why "people aren't aware how cramped the office space is" or how the building is not properly designed for modern-day police work, Public Site and Building Committee member Jeff Kenausis said.
Since last year, the committee has studied what to do about the overcrowded building. Next week members will visit several sites - all town land - to determine whether building a new station at another location would be better than renovating and expanding the 30-year-old Plumtrees Road building.
"We haven't ruled anything out and are still gathering information," Kenausis said.
A space needs study of the station done by a Newington architectural firm this year pointed out a number of concerns about renovating and expanding the station, he said.
One problem is the costly modifications necessary to expand upward, since there's not enough strength within the existing building to hold up another floor. Building outward from the one-level building is a possibility, but the town would need to take the cost of renovating the present police station into account, Kenausis said.
If construction is done at the current site, another consideration is the cost to temporarily relocate the police department, he said.
That's why a new police station on a different site might be more cost effective, if there's another spot in town that would fit the bill. Committee members will look at several sites at a special 7 a.m. meeting that starts at the police station Oct. 20.
Kenausis didn't want to say yet what sites the committee would visit, but said there are only a limited number of town properties that meet the 2-acre to 2½-acre recommendation of the space study. The study by

determined Bethel police need "significantly more space," Kenausis said.
The Bethel police station is 8,000 square feet and the architects recommend making it about three times as big.
Over the past decade, new police stations in most towns the size of Bethel have been between 20,000 and 25,000 square feet, Bethel Police Chief
Jeffrey Finch
said. Almost all areas of the present police station are overcrowded, from the offices to the lockers, to the records room to the communications center, he said.
"The lockup facilities are barely adequate," Finch said, adding the four cell blocks are sufficient, but there are no separate areas for men and women. There also is not enough space for a proper interview room for alleged criminals or their victims.
When the station was built in the mid-1970s, the age of computerization hadn't hit, Finch said. Today, computers are a major component of a police station and space is needed to accommodate them and the gear that supports them.
Finch is glad the building committee "is making progress" on finding a solution to the overcrowding and praised its thoroughness. "Any time the town takes on a new building project, there's a lot of questions to be answered and the committee is making sure those questions are answered."
Before taking any action on the police station, the committee will report its findings to the